Pantry Signs

When we all came back to work on the 5th of January, the first thing I noticed was the pantry. The tables had been rearranged and set against the wall, allowing only one side to be used. The "interior design" struck me as senseless and thoughtless at that time. But I didn't know what was coming end of that week.

By Friday morning of the first week of January, something was clearly going to happen. The bosses were unusually visible throughout the floor, flowing in and out of each other's offices. Majeed, our former editor-in-chief, was having more closed door phone calls and meetings than he could handle. And a colleague saw the head of the HR department come out of the General Manager's office!

Tip No. 1: If you see the head of HR getting involved in anything you can't put your finger into, you better dilate your eyes and expand your ears because it's definitely more than your usual guidance counsellor let's-have-a-chat stuff. When the HR is involved, it's about employees.

At 3pm of January 9, 11 officemates faced the "firing" squad. Brutally retrenched. The retrenchment did not come to me as a surprise as much as the number of people laid off did. I know that much bigger trimming off happened in the past but I wasn't there to witness it. This was the biggest I've seen so far in this company, and it involved some people who have been there for a long time.

Majeed had resigned in November. He had known about the merging of departments and the downgrading of our editorial department into a service unit, no longer a business unit. He had tried to get around the mergers, to find ways to work within the new setup. But we heard him say to a superior manager, who apparently had no idea he was leaving, that things didn't work out so he opted to resign.

The pantry knew. What struck me many days later was that most of them who were laid off in our department ate breakfast and lunch in the pantry everyday. It's like the whole lot of their lunch group were sacked. I should have seen the signs in the pantry. Tables facing the wall, not allowing the other side to be used? It meant there would soon be less people using the pantry -- at least until this coming Friday, January 30.

Our two editorial departments that had been merged will be placed in one floor -- our floor in the 14th. The editors in the 15F will join us. We'll be one big family, not sure if happy though. This Friday, the movement will happen.

I noticed the other day that the pantry tables were back in their original position. Anticipating more diners huh? By next week, it will be full again. Tip No. 2: If you're not sure but have that squishy feeling in the pit of your stomach that something's brewing in your workplace, check out the pantry. Maybe it knows.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 4 - Christmas Day

For the second year now, my father's brother and his wife, Tito Nonoy and Tita Liz, decided to come over for Christmas lunch. Last year, they attended mass in St. Andrew and spent the entire afternoon with us, watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose (They probably enjoyed that, and came back for more). This year, they decided to hear mass in Makati again.

So, despite a late and busy Christmas eve night -- last-minute grocery shopping in Shopwise, mass in St. Andrew at 8pm, Christmas dinner and noche buena and gift opening -- I had to wake up at 10 to prepare my pasta. Again, in keeping with the trend of the season (thriftiness), the pasta was nothing fancy. Just good ol' Italian sauce and corned beef hash sauteed in olive oil, plus Tita Yorn's leftover olives, capers and cream, which we had to get because they will be away from the condo until Jan. 19.

Mama prepared shredded carrots, apples and orange pulp for salad.

We also had fried chicken....


...the usual Christmas ham...

...and pork adobo brought by Tita Liz.


We had ice cream and Becky's Kitchen walnut brownies for dessert. And finally, the wines were out. This year, my relatives decided to tackle a different kind of horror -- that of getting drunk. Although Tito Nonoy is a very responsible driver and never gets more than his adequate fill of alcoholic drinks before a trip, Tita Liz, we found out, is wont to fall for seemingly innocent drinking sprees.

While sipping on Carlo Rossi, Tito Nonoy related how he had to fetch Tita one time from a neighbor's house when she couldn't come home on her own. She was invited by female friends to have dinner and some drinks. She accepted the invitation, not knowing that two among the group are expert drinkers who were planning on a different game that night. All the dinner guests were women. They locked themselves in and began a "tagay" that lasted until midnight. Husbands, boyfriends and other male family members were not allowed to join, to ensure that the ladies would go bottoms-up on their drinks without help from the males.

Tito said he practically half-dragged, half-carried my tita home. And when they arrived, Tita Liz cried non-stop -- whether out of drunkennes or out of frustration that she didn't see through their scheme. She was quite inexperienced in this as she rarely drinks, and that served as a lesson. Until now.

She told my brother: "Natatakpan mo yata ang electric fan. Urong ka kaunti." We noticed that Tita was perspiring. A few minutes later, she said, "Parang ang init yata ngayon." She was still perspiring; the fan was directly in front of her. Then, we noticed that Mama was also perspiring and kept wiping her neck. "Oo nga, parang ang init," Mama said.

"Hindi kaya yung iniinom niyo?" asked Papa.
"Bakit, ano ba iniinom niyo?" Tita Liz asked.
"Ito!" pointing at the Carlo Rossi red wine. "Ano ba kasi yang iniinom niyo!"
She stared at the bottle in front of her. It was not the Carlo Rossi. It was a white colored wine whose name I didn't catch, but after careful scrutiny, it had 17.5% alcohol, higher than the red wine we were drinking. And only she and Mama consumed the whole bottle! Later, they had one fan each blowing in their wet red faces.

This year's surprise was Justine, my cousin Joel's 14-year-old daughter, whom I have not seen in years. The last time I remember seeing her was when Marthe was still of crib age and Justine was looking over the crib to play with Marthe. That was most certainly a long, long time ago. So I was really taken aback when a tall, quite fashionable young lady walked in. She's now taller than me, of course (everyone seems to be!) She seldom joins her lolo and lola at Christmas as she stays with her other grandparents most of the time, but this year, she was able to come. How time flies!

Soon, Tito Nonoy, Tita Liz and Justine said goodbye. Gifts were exchanged, and another Christmas day has gone by.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 3 - Christmas Eve

Let me start by saying that this is the only year in my Global Sources professional history that I went to work on Christmas Eve. Not that I really did work! I barely had time to squeeze in thoughts of work, with all the Christmas Eve preparations running through my mind 1,000 kilobytes per second.

Tuesday night, after dinner, I finally finished decorating the Belen (Nativity Scene) in our garage. This year, there was no fancy stuff bought from the bookstore. I digged into an old box and saw the plastic leaves and stems of our old Christmas tree and voila! I had something to start with. I also saw a bag of discarded icycles and two large pieces of plastic flowers that had been pulled out from some previous Christmas decor. There were old Christmas lights in the box, too, but I didn't have time to test them so for this year, they're relegated to the box, unused. We'll probably throw them anytime anyway. No lights for the Belen this year; tipid muna. Within minutes, I had assembled the 12-piece Belen, plus all its "associate" members -- ceramic angels that were given by I-can't-recall-now-who. Some even had little tags indicating the name, date and place of the event. They were giveaways in weddings, christenings, debuts, what-have-yous. That's okay, they're great in the Belen this year, acting as cutee sentinels. (By the way, disregard the date stamp in the photo. Don't know what happened to the camera's settings.)



We do have other sentinels though. Pooh, in girlie santa costume from my opening presentation last year, and Hetty and Jollibee in party hats.


After missing shopping for stuff to put in the Santa stockings on Tuesday night (because of the Elf Convention coffee sharing), Rech and I agreed we'd hie off to Glorietta at 11am for a rush lunch break-cum-zip shopping. Rech asked Len's permission and Len agreed. The team met earlier to finally establish that we couldn't finish our deadlines for today so we're bringing home work over the holidays (waahhhh!!!). No use pretending to work.

At about 11:15, Rech and I left the office. Just as we were boarding a taxi, the last few words of the broadcaster on the taxi's radio floated into my ears: "Ayan, mga kaibigan, inuulit ko po. Ang Jan. 2 ay isang non-working holiday..." All of a sudden, Rech's voice became miles away and the radio program sounded to me like it was coming from a 5.1-channel home theater system.

I grabbed Rech's arm, "ano yun, wala tayong pasok sa Jan 2?!" Rech apparently heard it too but was as confused. I sent a text to Cecile and Len, my boss, to check the news sites for official announcement. None yet, they said. I was probably just excited about shopping, or anxious I won't be able to finish on time, they said.

Rech and I had a quick lunch in Food Choices, and I ran off to National Bookstore and she to Toy Kingdom after. On our way back to Glorietta, we noticed that many people are now flowing into the mall, driven in by the rain. Cabs were nil. We decided to walk back to Landmark or Greenbelt for a cab. While we were walking, Len called and asked if we could get some wrapping paper for her. We found a cab in GB5 after walking around for some time. We got back to the office around 2pm. Only one hour more and we can leave for vacation.

By that time, the HR office has already released an announcement about Jan 2 being a non-working holiday, after President GMA formally announced it that morning. Trust GMA to make late, impulsive declarations! So in character! Maybe she feared that her enemies would assember in her absence to counter her pro-charter change plans.

Anyway, Madam Gloria, thanks for a working Christmas Eve!